The album's non-chronological sequence highlights 2Pac's career; the 21 popular hits, some slightly re-edited for legal reasons, are accompanied by four previously unreleased songs: the dead friends tribute "God Bless the Dead", the dedication song "Unconditional Love", the tough talk "Troublesome '96", and the album's single "Changes" also helped earn 2Pac the first and only posthumous Grammy Award nomination since for Best Rap Solo Performance. Some tracks have alternate mixes, while the original mix of "California Love" makes its first proper album appearance after only being available as a single prior.

This is one of 2Pac's two albums—and one of only nine hip hop albums—to have been certified Diamond in the United States.[1]

Contents

Greatest Hits debuted at No. 5 with 268,000 and peaked at No. 3 in January 1999. It has spent 150 weeks on the Billboard 200. [2] On October 16, 2000 it was certified 9× platinum. Nearly 11 years later, in June 2011, it was certified by the RIAA for shipments of over 10 million copies, the late rapper's second RIAA Diamond award.[3][4] With 5.1 million units sold as of March 2015, it remains the best-selling rap greatest hits compilation of all time and the twentieth best-selling rap album since Nielsen Soundscan began tracking record sales in 1991.[5]

Tupac Shakur's virtual appearance at the annual Coachella Festival on April 15, 2012 spurred a re-entry for the album on the Billboard 200 chart; it jumped in at No. 129 with 4,000 copies sold according to Nielsen SoundScan (a gain of 571% over the previous week).[6]

The album was certified Platinum by BPI by 16 August 2002 which makes it his highest selling album in the UK.[7]